An I.S. machine has a plurality of identical sections each of which has a blank station which receives one or more gobs of molten glass and forms them into parisons having a threaded opening at the bottom (the finish) and a blow station which receives the parisons and forms them into bottles standing upright with the finish at the top. The blank station includes a pair of opposed blank molds which are displaceable from a separated position to a closed position. A vertically displaceable plunger of a plunger mechanism may be used to form the parison within the closed mold. The blow station includes a pair of opposed blow molds which are displaceable from a separated position to a closed position. An invert and neck ring holder mechanism which includes an opposed pair of neck ring arms which support neck ring halves which are the finish defining portion of the blank mold, is rotatable about an invert axis to carry the parisons (supported at the finish) from the blank station to the blow station inverting the parisons from a finish down to a finish up orientation in the process.
In state of the art I.S. machines, alignment between the blank molds and plunger mechanism is critical. It is also important to have the blow molds in line with the blank molds for neck ring transfer. State of the art mold open and close mechanism alignment requires multiple fixtures to first set the supporting brackets and then set the mold opening and closing linkage to the centerline position as well as the open position. After alignment is completed, levers must be doweled making it difficult to reset alignment in the future. Many steps in the aligning procedure make it difficult to perform accurately. Also, the fixtures do not allow the alignment to be checked in the normal operating mode--only static alignment can be done. It is also difficult to check the alignment when the machine is hot because of the time it takes to assemble the fixture to the section.